The Helen Hills Hills Chapel at Smith College is a center of diverse cultural and religious learning and experience, spiritual development, hospitality, and community engagement. It is a house of gathering for all.

Our program in religious life and community service extends the academic mission of the college outside the classroom to promote ethical inquiry, religious learning, spiritual growth, and community engagement.

Our chaplains, interfaith coordinator, and director of voluntary service represent distinct religious traditions, but minister to and work with the whole Smith community. Over a dozen student religious organizations cultivate interfaith understanding and cooperation. Together we strive to foster a dynamic and engaged community which can wrestle with the most difficult questions and issues.

Students’ words best express the significance of our work and this place. Several years ago, a blank journal was placed in our Bodman Lounge and students began to write their thoughts. Here is what one student wrote last year:

“In this Chapel, in its quiet spaces and murmuring sanctuary, I’ve been reminded of the power of being. And so I’m thankful for the quiet hum of the heating down here, the muted click of puzzle pieces fitting together, the filtering stream of daylight into this remote space. I’m thankful for the robins-egg blue of the recessed ceiling upstairs, for the unspecific holiness that makes no one an outsider, for the chime of that great arching balcony with bells and laughter. I thank whatever God may be, that I found my way to a place that we make sacred by our actions and by our intentions."

To this I can add only “Amen.”
We hope you’ll visit us while you’re on campus.

Dean Jennifer L. Walters

Jennifer Walters, Liz Carr, Bruce Seltzer, and Leon Burrows, Chaplains to the Smith College Community